Nature as a trademark owner

There is a current trend towards granting legal personality to nature.

 The idea is that this makes it possible to grant nature rights that can be explicitly taken into account when decisions are being made, or even enforced on nature’s behalf. This is already happening in Spain, where the Mar Menor lagoon has acquired legal personality. In the Netherlands, a politician has started lobbying to grant rights to Limburg’s hilly landscape.

More recently, the Museum for the United Nations launched Sounds Right, an initiative that allows musicians to assign rights to nature if a song features natural sounds. For example, the song Get Real by David Bowie says “David Bowie featuring NATURE”. The profits these numbers derive from Spotify and Apple Music, for example, will then go to nature conservation. Although this is an appealing initiative, it depends on the goodwill of artists. An animal or nature area cannot be a copyright owner, as we learnt from the famous case of the monkey that stole a camera from a photographer to take selfies. 

The interesting question is whether it makes any difference if an animal or a natural area has a legal personality. In principle, the answer is no. The decision on whether or not the monkey could have copyright on the selfies it took was based on the criteria that only creative work undertaken by a human being is eligible for copyright. These criteria, however, do not apply to trademark law. If an animal or nature area is a legal person, then this legal person could file a trademark and acquire a trademark right.

Leaving aside the question of whether the name of an area is distinctive (often it will be a geographical name, such as the Rocky Mountains or the Ardennes), the question is: what products and services will the trademark be used for? After all, trademarks are used to distinguish products and/or services from those of other companies or individuals. I can imagine official Rocky Mountains merchandise being marketed on the premise that any proceeds go to nature conservation. Human supervision will still be required to decide who or what is allowed to use that trademark.

 In other words, there is no getting around the fact that nature will still need human employees or volunteers. Nature as your employer.....now that’s an interesting idea.

Author: Arnaud Bos

Bio: Arnaud is trademark attorney and within Knijff responsible for the marketing & communication. Arnaud is specialist in the metaverse and music sectors and his client portfolio includes many upcoming and renowned bands. He keeps a close eye on the latest case law in the EU and will let you know when he sees remarkable applications.